


Legacies

by Ina MacAllan (inamac)



Category: Garrison's Gorillas
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, WWII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-26
Updated: 2010-04-26
Packaged: 2017-10-09 04:19:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamac/pseuds/Ina%20MacAllan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Too many missions have gone wrong – and when a member of the team is lost Garrison faces an even more dangerous task – will the Army let him keep the team together?  And at what cost?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legacies

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This was written for **Gorilla Warfare** a _Garrison's Gorillas_ fanzine produced in 1998 by Green Dragon Press (UK). Part of the text was written in collaboration with Lil Shepherd – to whom much thanks. O'Connor and the Contessa are original characters. Yates and the General are mentioned in canon – but not seen onscreen.

It was a subdued group who eventually assembled at the safe house which was the first stage of their exit across France. Missions had gone wrong before, but never so drastically, and Garrison, hunched over the canister of heavy water that he had risked all their lives to bring out of the Mannheim laboratory, had never been like this before.

Broody, Goniff called it. Casino was more forthright. "Fuckin' suicidal." He would have elaborated on the theme but Chief, dark eyes fixed on the hunched figure, had stopped him with a gesture.

"'t'aint the Warden's fault. Y'know the brass've been ridin' him."

"Yeah?" Casino glanced from the Lieutenant to the Indian and decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Garrison was in no state to referee one of their friendly arguments.

In fact he did not even appear to have noticed the spat. He gave a little start of surprise when Goniff leaned over his shoulder to proffer a cup of coffee. "That'll wake you up," he said. "Like Actor says, at least you can sometimes get a decent cup of coffee this side of the Channel."

Garrison nodded, and sipped. "Is there any word from Actor?"

Goniff glanced across at the others for confirmation. Chief shook his head. "No."

And that was something else that had gone wrong. The conman had been arranging their getaway, a string of contacts and safehouses that would take them to the coast and their transport home. The railroad was in place but, apart from coded messages and passwords, there had been no other message from Actor. Which was unusual. He liked to flourish his expertise, and usually found the opportunity to tease Garrison even if it was only a salutary 'love and kisses' at the end of a more important message. Goniff, who hated it when the team was split, found the lack of contact with Actor as worrying as Garrison's brooding.

"Never mind, mate. You know he won't hang around unless there's some skirt to chase. He'll be waiting at some safehouse with a dame."

For the first time since they'd arrived Garrison raised a smile. "Yes," he said, finishing his coffee and setting down the cup. "Guess we'd better get moving, then, and see if we can catch him."

***

But Actor was not at the next safehouse, or the one after that. By the time they reached the cove where the boat was waiting to ferry them back across the Channel it was obvious that something had happened to the conman.

"He's finally skipped," was Casino's opinion. Chief nodded.

Goniff was less willing to believe it. "Maybe he was caught? Shouldn't we try and find out what's happened to 'im?"

Garrison shook his head. "No, no time. We have to get this canister back to London. Besides, if Actor has been captured do you think we'd be able to find him?"

We could at least try, thought Goniff, but the others were already boarding the boat.

***

Three days later, and back in the familiar surroundings of the requisitioned house on the outskirts of London, Goniff woke to the sound of a powerful engine and the heavy crunch of tyres on gravel. Still half asleep, he pushed aside his blankets and groped for his watch. It was barely eight o'clock.

"What's up?" he asked of the room in general.

Casino, hunched at the table over a slice of toast and the Daily Mirror, glanced up. "Visitors, I guess." he said.

Chief had moved to the window overlooking the drive as soon as he had heard the gate opening. Now he nodded affirmation. "It's the brass," he said, casually. "Colonel Yates and that General..." He stopped, suddenly far more alert. A second vehicle had followed the staff car up the drive.

"What is it? asked Casino, abandoning Jane to the clutches of Hank the Yank and moving to join the Indian at the window.

Chief moved aside to let him see for himself.

The second vehicle had pulled up in the shelter of the wall. It was instantly recognisable, although none of them had seen it since their ill-fated mission with Blackie Krause.

"It's the prison van."

The news brought Goniff to the window. "You reckon they found Actor?" he asked.

Chief shrugged.

"If they have," observed Casino, watching the two men decanting from the staff car and striding purposefully up the steps, "looks like he's in for trouble."

"Maybe we all are."

***

Garrison had not seen the officers arrive, but he had been expecting the summons to the briefing room, hoping against hope that there might, at last, be some news of Actor or, if not, that he could persuade the Army to let him go in search of the missing conman.

The sight of Colonel Yates, a big, blocky man on whom the hairline moustache looked to have been drawn in by an insubordinate child, was a welcome one. Garrison grinned a genuine greeting in response to Yates' handclasp. The Colonel had been the guiding force behind the special units from the beginning, and was familiar with the team's record. There was a chance that he might be persuaded that Actor was important enough not to abandon. The second man, however, sitting very upright in the chair behind the big antique desk, was a whole new ballgame.

"General, sir," Garrison retrieved his hand and gave a crisp military salute by reflex. "I didn't expect you to come in person. Do I have your approval to go back to Mannheim?

"To look for your conman, Bergonzi?" General Mason Freemont - Ol' Mash 'n' Friedeggs to his more disrespectful subordinates - leaned back in the chair, folded his arms, and regarded Colonel Henry Yates and Lieutenant Craig Garrison with an expression which did not presage good news.

Garrison hesitated. "Yes... Sir?"

It was Yates who answered. "I am afraid, Lieutenant, that that is... no longer possible."

"But," Garrison was prepared to do battle but was stopped by Freemont's raised hand. The General gestured to Yates who opened his briefcase and slid a folder across the desk.

"Yours isn't the only team in the field, Lieutenant. We had that message last night. Your man Bergonzi was transferred to the concentration camp at Nordhausen last week. He was sentenced to be shot on Wednesday morning."

Garrison opened the folder and read the transcript of the coded message through three times without really seeing it. Actor could not be dead. Of them all he was the most alive - the most indestructible. The hope that had dawned when the officers arrived died with a whisper.

"No..."

Yates put a hand on his shoulder, recognising the need for comfort that Garrison dared not voice. "I'm sorry, son, but there is no doubt. The team who sent that message acquired these." He tipped the opened folder to let a sheaf of photographs slide onto the desk. They showed a set of documents, clearly photographed using one of the miniature spy cameras with which Garrison was familiar. He recognised the first; the set of forged papers which Actor had been using, an identity card with the conman's photograph in the name of Michael Gatti - and an official document in German, headed with the eagle and swastika symbol of the Reich, ordering the summary execution of Prisoner 5294865, Gatti, Michael, on a charge of espionage.

Garrison looked at them numbly. He hardly heard the Colonel's comment. "He was a good man. What he did will be recognised. Officially."

The General unfolded his arms and leaned forward across the desk. "And in the meantime this gives us an opportunity to reconsider your own role. That was what we came here for."

That caught Garrison's attention. "My role, sir? You're not going to dismantle the team?" He turned to Yates, with more animation than he had shown in the past three days, conscious that now he had to protect the rest of the team at all costs. "If I could point out, Colonel, that the unit was your idea in the first place."

"He's got you there, Hank," General Freemont regarded his two subordinates with equal disfavour. "But you didn't exactly volunteer for the command, Lieutenant."

"No, sir. I won it as a reward for annoying Colonel Yates."

Freemont lifted an eyebrow at Yates, who rolled his eyes in response. "I think you might be annoying the Colonel again, Lieutenant."

Garrison's face was a model of military decorum, but he couldn't - quite - keep the annoyance out of his voice. "Sir, we're damn good at what we do - and what we do is important."

"No-one's disputing that," Yates nodded. "You've taken impossible material and given us the best special forces unit we've got."

"Then-"

"We believe you can contribute more elsewhere at this time. What we're also concerned about is the effect on your career-"

"That's surely my problem, Colonel."

Yates took a deep breath, but Freemont put a hand on his arm. "That's not fair, Lieutenant, and you know it. Hank's stuck his neck out for you on any number of occasions, because he thinks you're almost as good as you think you are."

Garrison's mouth tightened, but stayed closed.

Freemont's own lips narrowed in what might have been a grin. "Well, it's obvious you believe no-one else can handle your men, Lieutenant. Isn't that just a little arrogant?" He pinched thumb and forefinger together in an eloquent gesture. "Just a very little bit...?"

Garrison's steady grey gaze didn't waver under the sarcasm. "That's not for me to say, sir."

"Maybe, but I'd like an answer. We came here to offer you promotion into a Captain's post pretty much tailored to your talents, and which should get you your Major's oak leaves before the war's over. If necessary I could cut your orders, and have you out of here in three days. Convince me I shouldn't do it."

Garrison took a long breath. It was an unconventional approach to promotion - but his was an unconventional career. He looked down at his hands for a moment, marshalling his thoughts. "Move me out and you lose the unit - the rest of the unit - not because I'm the only man who could command them, but because I'm the only man they'll let command them."

"Let?" Freemont's voice was ominous.

"They're not soldiers-"

"They are a bunch of hoods."

"'The best special forces unit we've got'," Garrison quoted. "It's easier if you think of them as eccentric civilian specialists. General, they don't see themselves as having cut a deal with the Government or even the Army, but one with me. You put anyone else in there and they'll close ranks against him - if they haven't already decided that, as I've broken my word to Actor, they're justified in taking it on the lam."

Freemont exchanged glances with Yates. "Do they talk like that?"

"Well, Garrison didn't before he started working with them."

"We understand one another," Garrison said, "even if I can't always anticipate what they're going to do. I won't junk two year's worth of work gaining their trust unless you make me, General. Especially now."

Freemont nodded, as if Garrison had confirmed something he already understood, even if he did not approve.

"General-" Yates began.

"You chose him for the job, Hank. God knows, no-one else would want it." He saw Garrison let out a breath of relief, and added: "We may all regret this decision, Lieutenant, you most of all. Very well. I can't say I'm surprised. You will need a replacement for Bergonzi. Another conman. O'Connor is still available so we arranged for him to be sent over. The van is outside."

Garrison's relief at being allowed to keep what was left of the team intact was tempered with apprehension. He hesitated in the doorway and turned back, "Sir, isn't this a bit - rushed?"

Yates grinned. "There is a war on, Lieutenant. We've lost a lot of good men. We can't afford to have any team out of the field for long. You'll have time to train O'Connor, make him fit in with your team, before you're transferred to your new mission HQ."

Garrison raised an eyebrow. This was unexpected. "New HQ sir?"

"Cairo," said the General, waving him to the exit.

***

"Have you ever met Garrison's quartet of convicts?" Yates asked, as the staff car purred down the English country lanes, the bare trees and hedges like ragged parade lines on either side.

"Once. Officially. They were very quiet. Just looked at me as if I was something in a zoo."

"Probably how you were looking at them."

"Hmm. I got the impression Garrison had threatened them with dire consequences if they so much as said, 'Hi.'" There was exasperation in Freemont's voice as he continued: "Maybe your blue-eyed boy's become a bit too close to them for his own good."

"You think that's what's behind this?"

"You know him better than I do. How did you expect him to play it when you originally gave him the assignment?"

"Tough," Yates said at once. "Get their respect and obedience by being smarter and harder and plain meaner than they are. And he's capable of being all of those things."

"You also keep telling me he's the most unorthodox tactician we've got."

"Yes. Which is why he should be out of there and into-"

"He didn't mention respect and obedience, Hank, just trust. With loyalty implied."

Yates was suddenly silent.

"And, considering the nature of his bunch of thugs, that is a whole new ballgame, Colonel."

Yates shook his head. "I'm not sure. Garrison always struck me as a career officer, but if he's willing to turn down promotion to stay with his team," he hesitated, then continued, more thoughtfully than was his usual style, "maybe there's a reason."

"Fraud?" Freemont suggested. "After all, they are convicts."

"Yes, but their missions have been very successful. We've been able to forestall a lot of the Germans' plans on the basis of information Garrison's supplied."

The General still was not happy with the interview. "Maybe too successful. The Germans could have been feeding us false information to start with. And then there's this heavy water business."

"I noticed you didn't bring that up."

"Didn't want to tell the man he'd been played for a sucker - to use his own colourful idiom - especially if he knew already. Still, losing their man Bergonzi does give us an opportunity to stand them down for a while. If Garrison won't accept the promotion he'll have to accept some changes." The General settled back into his seat. "Let's see if Cairo clips his wings a bit."

***

Garrison's gloom, which had lifted a little on the arrival of the officers, was back in full measure, and he went through the ritual of signing for the new arrival and turning him over to the Sergeant Major for a general briefing on the facilities and arrangements automatically, all too aware that he would have to face the rest of the team with the news.

Perhaps he should have taken up the General's offer. Maybe they were right; he could contribute more to the war effort elsewhere, and at this rate he was going to end up as the oldest Lieutenant in the US Army.

But he could not leave his men. He had taken the command as a means to an end, a one-off mission which, if he survived, would have lead to the promotion, and the Service career he had wanted.   
Somewhere along the line, in a bombed-out cellar in the middle of occupied France, his priorities had changed. As a soldier he could make a contribution to the war effort, but as commander and friend to his ill-assorted crew there was a chance that he could make a contribution to the peace which would follow. He would not abandon them now, and he certainly would not allow anyone else to break the news that, in one respect, he had already failed.

As he pushed open the heavy oak door of their room he wondered what, exactly, he was going to say.  
The three remaining members of what Yates had called 'the best special forces unit we've got' (and he certainly wasn't going to tell them that) were posed casually about the room; Casino in Actor's customary chair before the huge stone fireplace, reading a paper, Goniff's blond head bent over a game of Solitaire, and Chief perched up on the windowsill. If he hadn't heard the scuffle as they took their places, he might have believed they'd been there all morning.

Chief was the only one who looked towards him, black eyes intent in that misleadingly boyish face. Once satisfied that it really was his unit commander and not some doppleganger, he visibly relaxed. Behind the laconic drawl, Chief was suspicious of everyone, hot tempered, and easy to offend.

Garrison, trained to kill precisely when and where necessary, was sometimes left almost as breathless by casualness with which he stuck his knives between men's ribs as by his almost supernatural reflexes and weapons skills. Chief's loyalties were never anything but personal. He'd been lucky in that circumstances had gifted that loyalty to him with an ease that he still found astonishing.

No-one else could count on having that kind of luck. Something tense inside him finally began to relax. He'd made the right decision.

Wandering over to Goniff, he peered over his shoulder at the progress of the game. Goniff glanced up at him for a moment, waiting for the customary interference. Before the thief could make any comment there was the scrape of wood on stone as Casino abandoned his paper and shoved himself to his feet, the familiar scowl on his face. "Okay, Warden, I give in. Cut the suspense and tell us what miracle we gotta pull off now."

Of course, they'd think that Yates had been here with orders for them...

"None," Garrison said, with a smile in Casino's direction. "Not for today, anyway."

"So why were the Brass here?" That was Chief.

"Yeah, nearly blinded me, all that gold braid - an' made my fingers itch," Goniff contributed. "Old Friedeggs himself, wasn't it?"

Garrison's, "General Freemont to you, Goniff," was absent. He didn't have a ready answer for them, though, hadn't thought about it. Instinctively, he went on the attack. "I think that if you're so anxious to get out of this place that you start imagining missions, now might be a good time for a training exercise. Long country run, say. Just as exhausting as a real mission. I'm sure the Sergeant Major can arrange it-"

"You're kidding," Goniff said, with a nervous laugh. "You are kidding, aren't you Warden? I mean, it's bleeding freezing out there."

"He'd better be," Casino said. "I ain't doing any runnin' for anyone, an' if you wanna-"

"He don't mean it, Casino," said Chief, continuing, with uncharacteristic garrulousness, "Lessen you challenge him." He turned his attention to Garrison. "All right, Lieutenant, you win. Who was the guy in the van?"

"His name's O'Connor. He's a conman. Do any of you know him?"

All three looked blank. Goniff gathered up his cards. "Warden, you know the congame's not our style. Is he gonna help us find Actor?"

If there was one member of the team Garrison hated to disappoint it was Goniff, especially as his own disappointment over the news was so recent. Feeling as if he was breaking open a barely-scabbed wound he explained that they would not be going back for Actor. And why.

There was a brief silence when he had finished, broken, typically, by Casino. "I said that mission was blown from the start!" The cracksman thumped a fist on the table, expending pent anger that was directed, as usual, as much at himself as at Garrison.

Goniff nodded. "Yeah, the way those Krauts took Kessler they knew where to find 'im. Someone squealed."

"Weren't Kessler," Chief stated, remembering the way the cornered man had committed suicide rather than betray what he knew. It was an irony of war that the sacrifice had been unnecessary. The Germans had already known enough to pick up one member of the team. He and Goniff had been lucky to get out of that church with their own lives.

"No," said Garrison, "the OSS cell had been infiltrated. The Germans knew we were there. If it hadn't been for the air-raid on the laboratory they'd probably have caught us all."

"'Stead of just Actor," said Chief, his tone and expression unreadable. He had turned his attention back to the window, to the yard outside where a slow drizzle had started. The weather reflected the mood in the room.

Goniff shrugged, and started dealing cards again. "One thing we should be grateful for," he said, to no one in particular, "guess if they've sent another conman we're not all going back to jail."

***

The only thing which O'Connor had in common with Actor was his ability to charm. There all similarity ended. The Irishman was of average height, a couple of inches shorter than Garrison, with crisply curled dark hair and midnight blue eyes. He wore his army fatigues casually and had an easygoing manner that disarmed the team's initial hostility. In his own words he 'smoked like a bog-cottage chimney and drank like a camel in an oasis'. He had, in fact, been in North Africa before the war and, as well as French and German, spoke Arabic which, as Goniff put it, "Puts him one up on Actor," and made Garrison wonder about the motive for their move to Cairo.

***

He was still wondering two weeks later. He was leaning on the verandah of the long, two storey building which overlooked the Nile and served as unofficial meeting place for the various groups of allied agents who worked out of the Egyptian city.

Released from the strict military security of the Mansion, the restrictions of rationing and the English climate, the rest of the team had taken to the life like the proverbial ducks to water.

He could hear Goniff in the room behind him regaling the assembled company with a version of I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire sung in such broad Cockney that he was sure that even his English listeners could not understand one word in three. Even Chief, not usually gregarious, had been accepted for his throwing skills. Garrison had not been surprised at a request to 'borrow' the Indian for an unspecified SOE covert operation 'somewhere in the Med', an invitation which he had firmly refused on Chief's behalf, but he hadn't stopped similar requests from the darts and cricket teams run by the same Britishers.

O'Connor, familiar with the city, had lost no time in introducing Casino to the hotspots. They were out together somewhere now. Garrison knew that he should have vetoed the trip, or gone with them, but he doubted that Casino would abandon the team now. And he half wished that O'Connor would.

If Actor had been here... He stopped the thought, as he had so many times in the last weeks. He had not realised how much he had grown to rely on the Italian conman, for companionship as well as support in managing the team.

The worst of it was that he could not make himself believe that Actor was dead.

He had lost men before, in combat in North Africa, had broken the difficult news to wives and sweethearts, and had never understood their desperate disbelief. But he had seen the bodies, as they had not. Without personal proof of death there was always a glimmer of doubt. Of hope...

He quashed it. He had seen the confirmation of the Gestapo death warrant, and the citation. The Government had been generous. Alive they had been unwilling even to offer Actor a parole. Dead, all his crimes were pardoned. And that, more than anything, should have convinced him.

He was woken from his reverie by a light cough and a diffident: "Lieutenant Garrison?"

He turned. One day he would get used to responding to the English pronunciation of his rank. "Yes?"

"Message for you, sir."

The note was a telegraph flimsy in a code which was familiar enough for him to transcribe from memory. A time and a location. He nodded and pocketed it, dismissing the hovering messenger with a wave. "No reply. Tell my men to assemble for briefing in an hour."

"Yes, sir."

As the man departed Garrison leaned back on the rail, watching the busy river. A mission at last. Maybe it was what he needed to make him forget the past.

***

When Garrison walked into the briefing room he could almost believe that he was back at the Mansion. Almost, but not entirely. The whir of the big ceiling fans drowned the hum of the projector and did little to dissipate the dry Egyptian heat. O'Connor, leaning against the wall with a glass of whisky in his hand, was a vivid reminder of their changed circumstances. He suddenly realised that what he had been missing most over the past weeks was the smell of Actor's tobacco.

He dropped the leather document case on the table with a thump that brought them all back to the present. They had a job to do, a mission. And he had to bring them all back alive this time.

"Okay, the vacation's over. London want us to work for a change."

"We 'ave been workin'," said Goniff, feet propped as usual on the table. "Been getting to know the locals." He made a double-handed gesture which outlined the sex of the locals he had been getting to know.

"Yes." Amused as ever by the irrepressible Cockney, Garrison unzipped the case and extracted a sheaf of papers and a map. "Well, you're going to be given the opportunity to get to know some more."

"Where?" asked Chief.

Garrison spread out the map and four heads bent over it. Casino recognised it first. "Southern Italy," he said. "Thought we'd liberated that."

"We did," Garrison agreed. "This is a mopping up operation behind our own lines - which should make some things easier."

Chief's face was expressionless. "How come?"

"Because the Army has better things to do than tie up the loose ends of the German spy network." He straightened the map and indicated a spot a few miles inland from the heel of the boot-shaped peninsula. "That's our target. The country estate of Viscount Corvo." He reached across and put the first slide into the projector. On the white wall the black and white image of a tall, elegant, dark-haired man sprang into focus. Garrison turned across the beam and, for an instant, felt heart-stopping relief. Then he breathed again. He must stop seeing Actor in every shadow. The man on the slide bore only a superficial resemblance of race and bearing. The photograph had been taken at an Ambassadorial reception so the perfectly groomed hair and immaculate clothing which were so typical of Actor might not be usual for this man. He looked down at the file.

"Giovanni Alberto di Pelicci. Rumour has it that he was providing a 'storage service' for art treasures looted by German and Italian officers in return for the pick of the choicer pieces."

"A fence," said Goniff.

Garrison grinned at the argot. "On a grand scale."

"So," said Casino, "wha'dda we do? Go sit on him?"

For what felt like the first time in months Garrison relaxed. Casino and Goniff were as confident as ever about their ability to carry out this mission. He wouldn't let them down. "First we have to find out if the rumours are true. If Pellici has been salting away a nest egg he'll have to keep records. If we can lay our hands on those it will tell us who the guilty men are, what they've stolen and maybe where it is.

Chief, leaning against the door-jamb, shifted the matchstick he was chewing from one side of his mouth to the other. "You got the plans of this place, Warden?"

"No. We'll have to case the joint when we get there. Casino, Goniff, you'll need to pack your gear. O'Connor?" The Irishman looked up sharply as Garrison continued, "We'll try to get into the place at night, but if we can't we may need to con our way in. Do you think you can handle that?"

"It's what I'm here for, Lieutenant. I'll pack my stuff ready. When do we leave?"

"There's a boat picking us up at 1900. You've got two hours."

"Great," said Goniff, heaving his feet off of the table, "That's typical of the Army. We spend three weeks kicking our heels and then get two hours to get ready for a caper."

Casino grinned. "Don't sweat, baby. Think of that nice long relaxing sea trip..." He ducked neatly out of the way of Goniff's flung cap and left the room at a run, the thief on his heels.

O'Connor had been watching the by-play with an expression of bafflement. Garrison took pity on him. "Goniff gets seasick," he explained.

The Irishman grinned. "Then I'd better make sure I keep downwind, eh, Lieutenant?"

***

The wind, Garrison reflected, huddling into his coat, could be a blessing or a curse. At least in this unseasonable weather there was unlikely to be anyone walking through this part of the woods which bordered the Viscount's estate for recreation. On the other hand, it made reconnaissance a cold and unpleasant task. He glanced at his watch and then, with barely concealed impatience, looked up into the tree against which he had been leaning. "Well?" he called, softly.

There was a commotion among the branches and Goniff's head appeared, upside down, framed by leaves.

"Not a chance, Warden." he said, somersaulting to the ground to finish his sentence right way up.

"You'd have to be ruddy Tarzan to get across that wall from 'ere. He dusted bark from his hands. "Me an' Chiefy might do it I reckon, but the branches wouldn't take your weight, and there's a pair of ruddy great dogs loose that'd eat you for breakfast and bury the bones for supper."

They had heard the deep barking of the mastiffs as they had driven past the gates. Goniff's description confirmed his suspicions. They could get rid of the dogs - Chief's knives had stopped more than one hound from following their trail in the past - but that would alert the household. Garrison sighed, and turned to meet the rest of the team as they approached around the south corner of the walled estate.

"Any luck?"

Casino shook his head. "The gates have an electronic lock, controlled from the house. I could break it, but it would take a while, and those gates are floodlit - no chance of doing it without being spotted, at least by the dogs."

Garrison nodded agreement and turned to Chief and O'Connor who had been investigating the back of the house. Chief caught the look and shook his head.

"Guess we're gonna have to con our way in after all, eh Lieutenant?" O'Connor looked pleased by the prospect.

Garrison nodded. "Yeah. Let's get back to base and work something out.

***

Having poured over the plans of the house and grounds, and the information which they had gathered on their visit, Garrison finally came to the conclusion that conning their way in really was the only option. He had toyed with the idea of simply marching in in uniform and demanding to search the place, but the documents and artefacts they wanted would undoubtedly be hidden or destroyed in advance of such a search.

A more discrete frontal approach was called for, and it was Casino who discovered the opportunity.  
The safecracker had been leafing through the local paper, improving his knowledge of Italian and, Garrison suspected, looking for opportunities to practice his other skills, when his exclamation of surprise alerted them all. "Hey, Warden? This guy we're after - it's Viscount Corvo, yeah?"

Garrison nodded.

"Looks like he's throwing a party at his place for the local bigwigs." He folded the paper back to highlight a boxed advertisement in the Personal column. Stripped of the flourishes of editorial style and the etiquette of Italian nobility, the announcement was essentially as Casino had described it. Garrison, whose knowledge of the language was better than Casino's, if not so colloquial, translated for the rest of the team.

>   
> 
> 
> Viscount Corvo presents his apologies for the late disruption of the social calendar,  
> and begs to announce that he will host the customary annual   
> Reception of the Mayor and Councillors of the Town   
> on the 21st of this month.
> 
>   
> 

"Late disruption?" echoed Goniff. "That's one hell of a way to describe a war!"

"Black tie affair?" asked O'Connor.

"For a Viscount? You'd better believe it," Casino looked at Garrison. "You want invitations?" he asked.

"It would help." They could bluff their way in - if Actor had been with them there would have been no problem - but paperwork always helped. "If you could manage it?"

"Sure. No sweat. There can't be many printers in town." He swung his coat from the back of his chair and gestured to the thief, "C'mon, Goniff. Let's go shopping."

***

The invitation which Garrison presented to the liveried footman at the gate was cream-laid, deckle-edged, gold embossed and six inches square. The man hardly glanced at it as he waved the car through. Goniff, resplendent in the chauffeur's uniform they had purloined with the car, scowled. "We didn't need to bother with the pasteboard, Warden. They're letting anybody in."

"Into the drive," said Garrison, as Goniff brought the car to a halt in front of the impressive Baroque building, "Probably not into the house. Don't worry, your work getting the invitations won't be wasted."

"So," queried Casino, "how do we play it?"

This was something to which Garrison had given some thought during the past few nights. The fact that O'Connor was not fluent in Italian limited their options. And he still wasn't confident of the Irishman's skills. Could he con his way out of a situation without blowing their cover? Probably, but it would be best not to put him to the test.

"We circulate," he said. "This is just a reconnaissance mission. We need to know the layout so that we can hit the place later. Goniff, when you've parked the car remember to let Chief out of the trunk. He can check the grounds while you take a look at the servants' quarters."

"What about the dogs?"

"With this many strangers about they'll be locked up. The Viscount wouldn't want to risk an accident."

"Fine," said Casino. "And we case the inside of the joint. What if I do find a safe?"

"We play it by ear. If you can open it safely, find out what's in it and let me know. We'll have to come back later with a camera anyway."

O'Connor was looking up at the house, counting windows. "There must be a hundred rooms in that place. This could take days."

Garrison glanced at his watch as another liveried footman opened the door of the car. "Gratzie," he responded, stepping out with the air of a man who took the fawning of servants as his due. "We've got three hours," he added to his companions, as O'Connor stepped out in his wake and Casino, less privileged, opened his own door and rounded the rear of the vehicle to join the others.

"Piece of cake, eh, Warden?"

As they mounted the steps Goniff put the car into gear and drove silently around the house. They were committed now. The caper was under way.

The Reception, too, had started. In fact Garrison had deliberately timed their arrival late enough to ensure that the place would be crowded so that they could mingle freely without being noticed. In that respect luck was with them, for the major domo, in making his announcement of their arrival, tendered his apologies that the Viscount was hosting a small reception for the Mayor in his private quarters, but would be joining the rest of the party shortly.

Garrison, who had no desire to meet the Viscount or any of the legitimate guests on too intimate terms, murmured his own regret over a proffered glass of Champagne before descending the gilded staircase to circulate.

Whatever privations the Viscount had suffered during the 'late disruptions' they were not evident to his guests. The house had been decorated and furnished in high Baroque style, with gilded Corinthian columns between the windows and tall, yellowing mirrors framed with a riot of carved plants, fruits and fat, cheerful putti. The rooms were lit by electric candelabra each six feet across, laden with cut crystal reflectors and supported on chains that could have anchored a battleship.

The company was no less opulent. The men in evening dress and uniforms which were a mass of gold braid and multicoloured medal ribbons, the women in low-cut evening gowns adorned with feathers, sequins and lace, their hair dressed with pearls and their throats and wrists encircled with diamonds.

The place glittered. It was also so crowded that the three men had no trouble losing themselves in the throng. Garrison watched with some admiration as Casino cut a beautiful young woman out of the herd and guided her surreptitiously, with one hand on her silk-clad rump, up the double curved staircase to the floor above. No doubt he would persuade her to use the facilities of the ladies room while he checked the bedrooms for any possible hiding places. At least, Garrison hoped so.

O'Connor was under orders to perform a similar search downstairs in the rooms which fronted the main drive. That required no more cover than a glass of alcohol and the ability to slip through the crowd with the minimum of disruption, a task which the Irishman had positively welcomed.

Meanwhile, Garrison had set himself the job of casing the rooms at the rear of the house, where the study was most likely to be found. At present the Viscount was in those rooms with his private guests, so Garrison moved to replenish his glass and site himself where he could watch the door.

He had been watching for only a few moments when a woman of Wagneresque proportions accosted him. She had clearly been searching for a project all evening and a young man, particularly one who appeared to have no interest in the girls of his own age at the party, was obviously in need of her attention. It took him ten minutes of voluble and almost unintelligible Italian to get rid of her, and by the time he did the Viscount's privileged guests had returned to join the company. It was the arrival of the Mayor which finally detached Garrison's unwanted companion - who was apparently his wife - and released him to make his own way across the room to the exit.

He was stopped by the last thing which he expected to hear.

"Warden?" The voice was low, almost inaudible, but unmistakable. Actor.

Garrison turned and looked up, expecting to meet familiar brown eyes, and faced only empty air. Before the disappointment could register a light chuckle made him drop his gaze to the man sitting in the wheelchair.

"I'm sorry, I thought..."

"I always wondered whether I could fool you," he said, "Though I suppose in this case I do have the advantage of surprise."

This time there was no doubt. Garrison had to stop himself embracing the conman. Aware that his heart was beating far too fast, he took a sip of the wine, sincerely wishing that it was something stronger, and examined Actor over the rim of the glass. The lines on his face were not makeup, and he suspected that this time the beard was real. There were so many questions that he wanted, needed to ask, but this was neither the time nor the place. Instead, mindful of possible watchers, he asked the natural question. "What are you doing here?"

"I should ask you that question. After all, this is my house, my party, you're gatecrashing."

"Your party? You're the Visconte Corvo?" It was only habit that made Garrison keep his voice low. He took a deep breath. "Is there somewhere where we can talk?"

Actor looked up at him with the expression he usually wore when assessing whether a con was going to work. Then he nodded. "Yes, we had better." He turned his chair one-handed with the ease of practice and handed his glass to a beautiful dark woman wearing a cream sheath dress that must have cost hundreds of dollars, green silk evening gloves, and a matching emerald necklace worth thousands. "Carenza, my dear, can you look after our guests? I need to talk with this gentleman in private."

She gave Garrison an assessing look before taking the glass and bending to bestow a light kiss on Actor's cheek. "Don't be long, darling. I need your help with the cake."

"Half an hour," he promised, and spun his chair to bowl away through the crowd that parted for him. Garrison was hard pressed to follow in his wake.

***

The chair was silent on the thick carpets of the wide corridor outside the ballroom. Actor did not speak until he had led the way into a large book-lined room with tall French windows leading out onto a patio with a view over tree-dotted parkland. He stopped his chair with his back to the Lieutenant and leaned back, taking in the view.

"Well, he said, when the silence had gone on too long, "Are you going to haul me back to prison? It's a long way to Alcatraz."

"No." Garrison's denial was instinctive.

Actor turned to look at him over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "No? You'd prefer a German jail maybe?"

Garrison shook his head and moved to rest a hand on the back of the chair for support. "I don't understand," he said. "You were supposed to be dead - shot."

"Dead?" Actor smiled briefly. "As you can see, that rumour is exaggerated. But I was captured. A pair of SS officers picked up the car not long after I dropped Goniff and Chief. Someone had tipped them off. They were annoyed not to have bagged us all."

He spoke lightly, but Garrison had been in the hands of German interrogators himself. Actor would have been questioned. Beaten and tortured. The beard probably hid scars. And there was a reason for the wheelchair.

"Thanks to you, they didn't, he said, trying to match the conman's tone. "We got out and home. Thanks for holding out." He nodded to indicate the blanket-covered knees. "Did the Gestapo do that?"

"In a way. They were chasing me at the time. I broke my leg jumping off of a wall. I'm not as good at that sort of thing as Goniff." This time Actor really grinned. "Remind me to thank Casino for his advice. Though I suspect that German guards are easier to bribe than American ones. It wasn't a very high wall, and I had friends on the other side." He banged his fist on his shrouded thigh, producing a solid thump. "The plaster comes off in three weeks, and the doctors say it'll be like new."

Garrison released breath he did not know he had been holding in a sigh of relief. "So, how come the Viscount Corvo business?" he asked, his gesture encompassing the landscape and the library.

Actor topped up his glass from a tantalus on the side table. Crystal rang on crystal, emphasising its quality. "War plays havoc with dynastic succession," he said. "I came here to touch cousin Giovanni for some cash. I was too late. The RAF got to him first. So I ended up with all this." His gesture took in the room, the house, and the landscape to the horizon.

"You seem to be enjoying it," said Garrison. "That party can't have been cheap." He paused, "Who was the woman?"

"Carenza di Pellicci, Viscountess Corvo." Actor was watching Garrison's face, and did not miss the fleeting expression. Surprise? Dismay?

"Your wife?"

"Giovanni's widow. By rights all this should be hers; she's looked after it for long enough." He sighed. "I've spent all my life chasing rich women, and now I've got the riches I want to hand them back to a woman."

"A very attractive woman." Garrison was well aware of Actor's weakness where beautiful women were concerned.

"A very unhappy one," the conman countered. Then, for the first time, he turned and looked directly at Garrison. "So much for my adventures," he said. "You haven't told me yet what you're doing here."

"I..." Garrison was spared explanation by the delicate chime of a French ormolu clock on the mantelpiece behind them.

Actor looked up."Damn. I promised Carenza I'd only be half an hour. Can you wait here, Warden? Or come back later? We need to talk."

Garrison glanced at his own watch. This part of the caper was blown anyway. And he needed to talk with the others. "Later," he agreed. "Tomorrow morning?"

Actor nodded. "Make it about eight and I'll have breakfast waiting for you. I assume that you will not want to use the front door?"

Garrison nodded. "We aren't supposed to advertise any interest in this place."

"There's a back gate. Casino's probably already spotted it, but I'll make sure that it's open. And that the dogs are locked up."

Garrison grinned. "It was the dogs that put us off of the idea of using that gate in the first place." He held out his hand. Actor's grip was firm, and his eyes sharp. To an outsider it would have looked like a brief farewell, but the two men both recognised it as welcome.

***

Later Garrison could remember collecting the others, quelling Casino's complaints about being removed, precipitately, from his search (and his lady friend), avoiding Goniff and O'Connor's questions, grateful, for once, for Chief's stoic acceptance of any change in plan. He did it all in a walking daze.

Once in the car, Casino's protests, curbed by the necessity to remain discrete while on the Viscount's premises, were given full rein. "I didn't have time t'check more than a coupla rooms. Did'ja find the safe, Warden?"

Garrison shook his head. No.

"Hey, Warden," Goniff added, equally aggrieved at having been dragged from the servant's quarters where the debris of the party was being served to the waiting chauffeurs and valets by a generous Italian cook and her pretty daughter. "Then why pull out? They'd never've tumbled us."

"Sure, too busy fillin' themselves with the Viscount's booze t'notice if a camel was casin' the joint."   
Casino rarely got a chance to elaborate on his grievances and Garrison's silence was an unexpected bonus. It was Chief who broke in to stop him.

"Warden has his reasons, Casino."

"Yeah? Well they'd better be good ones, 'cause the Army ain't gonna like it if we blow this one. Loosin' our touch without the full team.."

"You've got a full team," said O'Connor, from the rear seat. "But maybe the Lieutenant is losing his touch."

If Goniff had not been driving he would have lashed out. As it was the car swerved briefly as he glanced over his shoulder to growl an insult. It woke Garrison enough from his reverie to stop the argument with a curt command. He spent the rest of the uncomfortably silent return journey wondering whether he should reveal his reasons for the withdrawal. Now that the mutual shock of finding Actor alive and if not wholly well, at least cheerfully active, had worn off, doubts had returned to plague him. Was the conman on the level? Did he know anything about his cousin Giovanni's activities? And if he did, was he continuing to act as a fence for the proceeds of the Reich? Actor had a fierce loyalty to people - to himself personally - but where objects, particularly valuable objects, were concerned he had no scruples at all. And what about the beautifull Contessa? That comment about giving the riches back to her had hinted at a closer relationship than that of mere cousins-in-law.

And what were Garrison's own options? Should he take the conman back with him? To what? The US Army were unlikely to welcome him with open arms, but could they rescind a pardon? They'd probably court martial him for desertion. But if he did not, the team was finished. What was there to keep Casino and Goniff working for the Army when a faked death could deliver, if not an Italian title, at least guaranteed freedom?

And then there was O'Connor. There was something about the Irishman... something that bothered him, although he could not say precisely what it was, or why he should be so suspicious. He'd worked as hard as the rest of the team, and he was obviously good at his job. The party had proved that. But he was still not one of them. He had been Freemont and Yates's choice. It was for that reason, as much as anything, that Garrison dispatched him on a minor errand before gathering the others together in the briefing room to break the news.

"So," Casino asked, when they were all assembled, "What's the story?"

Though all eyes were on Garrison, it was Chief who replied, breaking an awkward silence. "He's found Actor."

Garrison, who had been wondering how to break the news, stared at the Indian with as much surprise as the other two. "How did you know?"

Chief smiled, slow and lazy, enjoying the effect of his words. "Saw you through the French windows while I was checkin' the grounds."

"You both sure?" asked Casino.

"I wasn't," Chief admitted, "'til the Warden called off the caper. He's sure."

Garrison nodded. "It's Actor."

Casino grinned, and slapped a hand across Garrison's shoulders. "Hey, that's great, man. Told you the guy's too slippery f'the Krauts. What's he doing here? Casin' the joint like us?"

Goniff, plainly as delighted as the cracksman, shook his head. "Nah. He'll be after one of them dames. All them shiners," he added, wistfully, still vexed about the missed opportunity to do some 'shopping for Mum' himself.

"No," said Garrison, then, remembering the look Carenza had given Actor he added; "well, not exactly. Apparently Giovanni Pellici - the late Viscount Corvo - was his cousin."

Goniff's eyes widened. "So..." he said, making a gesture which encompassed untold wealth.

"So, officially, Actor is now Viscount Corvo."

"Yeah," Casino was still grinning. "An' he's also officially dead - courtesy of the War Department. The Brass are gonna love sortin' this one out." He looked dubiously at Garrison. "You gonna tell 'em?"

"I don't have a choice, Casino. This... complicates things."

"Yeah, Actor always did."

"We'll discuss it," said Garrison firmly, "tomorrow. Actor wants us to take breakfast at the villa."

Chief, who had been listening with his usual impassivity, finally broke in: "What about O'Connor? You takin' him, Warden?"

The quiet question prompted a sudden, instinctive, decision. "No," he said. "For now, it's still Actor's call.

***

Garrison was by no means certain that he would be able to detach O'Connor, but morning brought inspiration in the shape of a nightmare re-run of the previous evening, and he despatched the conman with instructions to discover all that the Mayor's wife knew about the arrangements at the Villa Corvo. From his own experiences with the woman he did not think that the Irishman would be able to talk himself out of that until at least teatime. By which time he might know what to do about Actor.

As Actor had promised, the garden gate was unlocked and, more importantly, there was no sign of the crop-eared mastiffs which had deterred Casino from entering the grounds via that route on the previous visit. The four men were, nevertheless, wary as they crossed the immaculately manicured lawn to the house. There Garrison hesitated. "We need to find the conservatory..."

Chief nodded. "This way, Warden," he said, leading the way round the side of the building to where a forest of cast iron palm trees supported an expanse of glass that would, as Goniff observed, have given the Crystal Palace a run for its money. Inside, screened by vine leaves and the purple riot of bougainvillea, Actor was seated at a matching cast iron table loaded with baskets of bread, toast, condiments and a scatter of covered dishes from which the aroma of eggs and bacon rose temptingly. Clearly the conman had not abandoned the habit of enjoying a hot English breakfast when he had abandoned cold England. He saw them through the glass and waved a welcome. By the time they had found the door, four cups of steaming coffee had been added to the repast. As they entered, Actor set down the silver jug and motioned to the circle of seats.

Casino and Goniff ignored the formality, crossing to slap the conman companionably on the back.

"Hey, man, we missed you. How're you doin'?"

"Apart from the broken leg? Fine, until the Warden showed up." Actor's smile took the sting out of the comment.

Casino nodded. "Yeah, like a bad penny, eh? The War's not over yet, you know. An' the Army wants its money's worth."

Actor was looking at Garrison. Always acute at assessing people, he had not missed the Lieutenant's tiredness yesterday, or his reticence this morning. "I think the Army's had more than its money's worth out of all of us, Casino." He leaned across and picked up one of the Sevres porcelain cups, which he handed to Garrison. "Have some coffee and tell me what all this is about."

The Lieutenant accepted the cup and drank, warmed more by the presence of his team than the aromatic liquid. "According to US Intelligence reports, a lot of Italian antiques and artworks went missing when the Germans pulled out. Rumour has it that some of the loot is being stored by Viscount Corvo for collection at the end of the War." His eyes met Actor's over the gold-rimmed porcelain. "I'm assuming that the reports refer to your predecessor, Viscount."

Actor grinned. "Cousin Giovanni wasn't such a paragon of virtue after all? A pity, I rather enjoyed being the black sheep of the family."

"So," said Goniff around a mouthful of thickly marmaladed toast, "where did this geezer stash the loot?"

"Wherever it is," said Actor, "it's not here. Unless we're talking about some very second-rate artwork? I have to admit that Giovanni's taste, while expensive, was not very refined."

"Oh, I don't know," said Casino, upending his saucer to inspect the interlaced 'L's of the factory mark, "This looks like pretty good stuff to me. You sure you didn't con it out of some museum?"

"That," Actor bridled, "is a family heirloom, a present to my great grandmother from the Empress Josephine. Its provenance is impeccable. I can assure you, Lieutenant," he added, turning to Garrison, "it is not some Nazi commander's nest egg."

Garrison held up a placatory hand. "If it was stolen you wouldn't be stupid enough to wave it under our noses," he said. "What we want to know - what Allied Intelligence wants to know - is whether Cousin Giovanni left any written evidence of his secret deals. Have you found anything?"

"I haven't looked. There certainly wasn't anything in his papers to suggest illicit activities; merely bills and gambling debts."

"What about the safe," asked Casino.

"Safes," Actor corrected. "The one in the study contained the usual family papers, Giovanni's will, the title to the house, the provenance for this tea service... that sort of thing."

"And the other one?"

"Is in Carenza's room. I assume that she uses it for her jewellery. You saw that necklace last night, Casino."

"Which one was she?"

"Brunette, cream dress, green gloves..."

"Oh yeah. An' the Corletti emeralds."

There was a pregnant silence. Actor was looking at the cracksman with eyes wide with shock. "The Corletti emeralds? Are you sure?"

Casino nodded. "Sure I'm sure. They're in that book you left at the Mansion - Great Jewel Collections of the World. Six matched emeralds in a diamond an' gold setting. Worth a cool half million. Is the broad old man Corletti's daughter?"

"No," said Actor. "The Corletti estate was taken over by the Nazis in '40. Presumably they took over the emeralds as well."

So what, wondered Garrison, were they doing around the Countessa's pretty throat?

"You reckon this is part of the haul we're lookin' for?" asked Goniff, around a mouthful of toast.

"It could be." Garrison was decisive. "Casino, you'd better check Carenza's safe."

"Sure. You got a key, Actor?"

"No. Carenza knows the combination, but she's out visiting this morning. You'll just have to crack it, Casino."

"Nobody ever makes things easy," the cracksman complained. "Okay, where is it?"

"Second floor, third door on the left at the top of the stairs."

"Give me ten minutes."

When Casino had left Actor raised a questioning eyebrow at Garrison. "He's slowing down," he observed.

"Being cautious. He hasn't seen your safe yet."

"I see. And what about you, Lieutenant? Are you being cautious?"

"He's being suicidal," broke in Goniff, vehemently. "That last mission in Mannheim, when you copped it, he damn near blew us all up. No wonder the General got shot of us. 'E probably expected the Warden t' blow up the Mansion."

"Well now," said a familiar Irish brogue, "maybe he did at that."

Three heads turned as O'Connor stepped out from behind the concealing foliage. He had a revolver in one hand, trained unerringly on Garrison. His appearance caught them all by surprise, but no observer would have realised it. Actor was leaning back in his chair, regarding the tableau over steepled fingers, his dark eyes amused. Goniff, well aware that anyone who held a gun on Garrison was likely to have it taken away from him with very little effort on the Lieutenant's part, put the remainder of his toast back on its plate and waited for the moment. Chief was less sanguine. As the Irishman emerged Chief dropped his arm to his side, bringing the hilt of a knife under his fingers. The motion was arrested as O'Connor, without moving the gun from Garrison, shook his head. "Forget the knives, son. If you so much as twitch I'll put a bullet in the Lieutenant first. Even you're not that fast."

The Indian glanced at Garrison, who nodded. "Leave it, Chief. I want to hear what O'Connor has to say. He's supposed to be on our side, remember?"

"Don't look like it..." Another look from Garrison silenced Chief. He folded his arms and leaned casually back against an iron palm, but his black eyes focused unmoving on the Irishman.

"Well," Garrison continued, turning back to O'Connor, "whose side are you on?"

He ignored the question. "It looks," he said, "as if General Freemont was right about you after all. Anyone who'd turn down promotion like you did had to have a better reason than loyalty to some bunch of crooks. You an' Bergonzi were in this together, weren't you? That's not Nazi loot he's storing, it's yours, a nest-egg for the end of the war. What did you plan, Garrison? Another 'accident'? So the Army gets two fake heroes and you get the loot?"

Garrison shook his head. "Until yesterday I was just as convinced that Actor was dead as the rest of you. If there is a plot, O'Connor, it isn't mine."

The other man gave a sneer of disbelief. "So you came here for a cosy chat with your collaborator and sent me off on a wild goose chase. I wasn't born yesterday, Lieutenant. You don't get rid of me that easily."

"Yeah," said Goniff thoughtfully. "What did bring you here?"

"I did," said a new voice from the doorway.

For the second time in as many minutes, all heads turned. All save Chief's. The distraction was the opportunity he had been waiting for. The thrown knife sliced across O'Connor's wrist and buried itself, hilt-deep, in the trunk of a fig tree behind him. The gunman clutched at his bloody fingers with his free hand as the gun clattered on the marble floor. The newcomer kicked it aside with one high-heeled silk shoe.

"Gratzie," said the Viscountess, nodding to Chief before shifting her attention to the other men. "If you have any other weapons, please drop them now." The Luger in her hands emphasised the request.

Actor looked from the injured man to the woman. "You're in this together?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I don't take partners," she said. "I was visiting the Mayoress - a social call after last night's party, at your suggestion, Cousin. He was there asking some interesting questions about this house. So I invited him to look for himself. I did not expect him to find anything."

"You didn't plan on showing him the contents of your safe, then," Garrison stated.

A wolf-smile tilted her perfect lips. "No. I checked the safe first. That is why Signore O'Connor was left alone in the study. And I am afraid that you must abandon hope that your colleague will help you. I dealt with him upstairs."

"You killed Casino?" Goniff started forward, and was halted by a movement of the gun in her hand.

"If Casino was the man who had broken into my safe," she said, "he was still breathing when I left him tied up."

"Still am," said Casino, from the doorway. He was leaning most of his weight on the frame, and there was a dark, damp patch of matted hair above one ear. It had clearly taken him some effort to escape from his bonds and negotiate the stairs. With no weapon, he had timed his announcement to distract her, to give Garrison, who was closest, the opportunity to disarm the woman.

He did not take it. Carenza merely moved so that the gun covered them all. "Ah. All my eggs in one basket," she said.

"So what do you propose to do with us?" asked Actor, with interest. "Shoot us all?"

"Possibly," she looked thoughtful. "I am a very good shot. And there would be no problem getting rid of the bodies. This is a very large estate. There are even catacombs, out by the lake."

"Is that where you've stashed the loot?" asked Goniff.

She nodded. "Yes. That's very clever of you."

Actor turned his chair carefully away from the table. "Thank you," he said. "That was all we needed to know." He looked across at Garrison, still held under the muzzle of the gun. "Your trouble, Lieutenant, is that you're much too gallant. I, on the other hand, have no qualms about hitting a lady..." As he spoke he swung the chair sharply round. His outstretched leg crashed into the back of the woman's knees, folding her forwards across his lap. One hand came down swiftly on the gun, sending it clattering across the tiled floor, the other caught her by the throat, pulling her up to face the rest of the group.  
"...especially," he finished, with a grimace of pain, "when the lady is a crook."

Garrison had retrieved the gun. Whatever his qualms about hitting a lady he had no compunction about keeping a gun on one. "Casino," he ordered, "deal with her."

"With pleasure." The cracksman replaced Actor's grip with his own. "C'mon babe, let's see how you like bein' tied up." He dragged her across to one of the iron palms which supported the roof, using a cord ripped from one of the sunblinds to lash her wrists behind the metal upright.

Garrison handed the gun to Goniff and rounded the table to kneel beside the wheelchair. Actor's face was drawn with pain and both hands gripped his injured leg. "Have you broken it again?" Garrison asked.

"I'm not sure," Actor spoke through clenched teeth. "I think... the splint... took most of the... force."

Garrison ran his own hands over the limb. "The plaster's not cracked. You might be lucky."

Goniff, meanwhile, had joined Casino. "What kept you, mate?" he asked.

Casino pulled the last knot viciously tight. "She slugged me."

Garrison looked up from his examination of Actor's leg. "With the gun?" he asked. If she had used that then it was a miracle that Casino's skull was still intact.

"No," he said. "That was in the safe." Casino gently probed the back of his head, encountering dampness. He sniffed at his fingers and gave a grimace of disgust. "Scent bottle," he deduced, giving her a murderous look which suggested that he would have preferred the gun.

"Sixty francs a gramme," she smiled. "Such a waste."

"Yeah, especially where you're goin'." Casino skillfully evaded the kick she aimed at his shins and turned back to Garrison, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out a leather covered notebook which he tossed casually onto the table. "That was in the safe with the shiners. Is it what you were lookin' for, Warden?"

Garrison snatched it up almost before it hit the tablecloth. He flipped it open. "Yes," he breathed.

"A list of the stolen property?" asked Actor.

"More than that. A list of who stole it, and who was going to keep it after the war."

"The Krauts?" asked Goniff, sauntering across to look over Garrison's shoulder. His curiosity was not rewarded. The notes were written in a spidery Italian scrawl which was almost illegible. Garrison flipped through rapidly, running his finger down the lists of names and booty until he almost reached the end of the manuscript pages. He stopped with his fingers on a separate list of names. There was a long pause before he looked up at the Viscountess.

"Not just the Germans," he said. "Whatever happened you were coming out of this with the cash, weren't you, Contessa?"

"Of course. I am not a fool, Lieutenant."

Actor had been watching both faces. Now he reached for the book and, taking it from Garrison's unresisting hand, he ran an eye down the list that had so shocked the Lieutenant. "Mason Freemont," he said. "I assume that means General Freemont? If the Allies won you planned on offering the loot to him?"

"No," said Garrison, still with his eyes on the lady, "not offering. Look at the note. He's already made a down-payment. Four hundred dollars for a Tintoretto."

Casino whistled. "Cheap at the price," he said.

"Oh no," Garrison contradicted. "The General is going to pay a much higher price than he can afford for this."

Goniff was scratching his head, a characteristic gesture when he was puzzled. "'Ang on a minute," he intervened, "Ol' Mash 'n' Friedeggs sent us out 'ere didn't 'e? Why would 'e do that if 'e was doin' a deal with the duchess 'ere?"

"I don't know," said Garrison, grimly. "It depends how far this goes back. And whether the General knew about Actor's connection with the Di Pellicis."

"He knew," said O'Connor, surprising everyone except Chief who had retrieved his knife during the scuffle and was now covering the Irishman. Blood was oozing slowly through the handkerchief he had used to cover the wound in his hand, but his voice was still strong.

Actor looked up sharply, surprise overriding the pain in his eyes. "Do I know you?" he asked, thoughtfully.

"You should," said Casino. "Irish here is another conman."

"No," Garrison shook his head. "You're not, are you, O'Connor? You're a spy. The question is, whose side are you on?"

"Colonel Yates's," the Irishman said, promptly. "D'you mind if I sit down? This is going to be a long story."

It was the man's attitude as much as the question that made Garrison accede to his request. Nodding to Chief to relax his vigilance, he waved O'Connor to a free chair. Casino and Goniff resumed their own seats, the Cockney taking the opportunity to pour more coffee for himself. Chief declined the offered pot and shifted his attention to the bound woman.

O'Connor leaned his elbows on the table and began to speak in the crisp, orderly tones of a soldier making a report. That, as much as the content of his speech, convinced Garrison of the truth of his story.

"Do you remember being sent on a mission, about eight months ago, to bring out General Kaltenbrunner from Italy?"

"Do we ever," said Casino. "We damn near got killed too."

"You were meant to. The orders for that mission came directly from General Freemont - two weeks after he'd met Actor."

Garrison remembered the encounter; it had been nothing more than a routine inspection. He'd given his men firm orders about being polite to the General and they'd been as meek as lambs for once. He could not remember anything special having been said about Actor, although the tall conman was difficult to overlook, both literally and figuratively.

"Signore Bergonzi looks very like his cousin," O'Connor said.

"The resemblance is superficial," said Garrison, remembering his own momentary mistake the first time he had seen Giovanni's photograph. He'd dismissed it as imagination, but clearly the General hadn't.

O'Connor confirmed it. "After the inspection the General asked to see the files on your men. They must have confirmed the family connection. Perhaps he thought that the Viscount might talk."

Actor laughed, without mirth. "The family would never talk to anyone - least of all me." he said.

The Irishman shrugged. "Anyway, the General gave orders for what was virtually a suicide mission to get rid of you all. It didn't work. It didn't work because the General expects soldiers to follow orders - and your men aren't soldiers. Yates thinks that he probably tried to sabotage a few of your missions after that first attempt failed. When that didn't work either he rigged a court martial to discredit you and have your men, including Bergonzi, sent back to prison where they couldn't talk."

"I always said that was a set-up," said Casino.

"And that didn't work either," Actor echoed. "What then?"

"By then Yates was very suspicious. You were having too much bad luck. There was obviously a spy somewhere in the woodwork, so there was no one he could trust. He cut down briefings for all units to a 'need to know' basis, and let the commanders figure their own tactics, so that not even he knew where you were going to be or what you'd be doing on a mission."

Garrison remembered the Colonel's change of heart vividly. "I don't care how you do it," he'd said, "and I don't want to know your plans. Just put it all in your report when you get back."

It had worked. They'd had a run of successful, if unorthodox, missions. They had even broken a black market ring within the army. He'd found one corrupt commanding officer; it should not be such a surprise to discover that he'd been duped by another.

The man who had tried to kill Actor.

"What about that last mission in Mannheim?" he asked.

"That was what finally convinced Yates that the General might be responsible for your run of 'bad luck'. Someone on Bergonzi's escape line reported back to Freemont instead of Yates. Presumably the General backtracked and deliberately leaked your location to the Nazis. It was the General's bad luck that they weren't fast enough to catch you all."

"Hmm," mused Actor. "But Yates got suspicious? If he suspected that the General was involved every time one of our missions went wrong, he'd still need more proof than that."

Garrison nodded, his own eyes still on O'Connor. "So whose idea was this mission?" he asked. "The General wouldn't have risked sending anyone to investigate the Corvo estate, surely?"

"Double bluff. Remember, he thought that Di Pellici was still running things here. A word to him that you were nosing around and your lives wouldn't have been worth a plugged nickle. Yates manoeuvred Freemont into suggesting you for a mission. The General jumped at the chance - he even suggested that you might be using the Count's 'services'. Yates went along with it...

"Son of a bitch," exclaimed Casino. "The devious old fox was hedging his bets. Whatever happened, O'Connor was his ace in the hole."

"What did you expect," said the Irishman. "It was the Colonel who came up with this crazy idea of bringing in cons in the first place - an' puttin' the Lieutenant in charge of 'em."

"Sometimes," said Garrison, "I wonder. Okay, we've got all the proof Yates needs."

O'Connor shook his head. "You could've forged the book," he pointed out.

"We couldn't forge the broad," said Casino, his voice hard with fury. "Right Warden? She's coming back with us. An' she'll sing like a canary to the Colonel."

Garrison nodded and rose, pocketing the incriminating book. "You're right, Casino. We can't sort all this out here. We'll take the Contessa back to Cairo with us and I'll report from there."

"What about me, Lieutenant?" Actor was smiling, but his voice still held an edge of pain, and something else that might have been - anxiety?

Garrison pushed a hand through his hair. Writing this particular report was not going to be easy.   
O'Connor would back him, and the Contessa could confirm that Actor had had no part in her conspiracy, but even with wartime speed, court-martialling a General wasn't something that happened overnight. "You're staying here 'til the Army decides what to do about you," he said. "You can keep an eye on the stuff in the Contessa's haul. And if anyone else comes calling for her services, string them along. When the war's over we'll want to know where the bodies are buried."

Four pairs of astonished eyes met his. Chief voiced the general concern. "You're gonna trust Actor?" he asked.

Garrison put a hand over the book in his pocket. "I'm keeping this," he said, "and if Actor can't account for every last cent when the War's over I'll not only make sure that they rescind that pardon - this time they'll throw away the key."

The object of the threat grinned. "They'll have to find me first," he pointed out.

"Hmm. You won't run until that leg's healed. I'll be back before then. Besides," he gestured around the conservatory, "I don't think that you'd run out on all this luxury, eh, Viscount?"

Actor grimaced, and not, this time, with pain: "Expensive luxury. I don't suppose that the Government's gratitude would stretch to paying Cousin Giovanni's debts?"

"Neither do I," Garrison smiled. "Which reminds me-" he turned to Casino who was wrangling over the last of the marmalade with Goniff, and clicked his fingers before holding out his open palm. "Hand 'em over."

The cracksman gave him an innocent look. "Hand what over, Warden? You want some jelly?"

Garrison sighed. "You were alone with that safe and the Corletti emeralds for at least twenty minutes. So hand 'em over."

Casino sighed, and reached into his pocket, producing a handful of green fire which he contemplated with regret.

"Aw...Warden!"

 

~END~


End file.
